Pope St. Agatho's Tome and the 6th Ecumenical Council: A Response to Craig Truglia

Erick Ybarra's CTC (Classical Christian Thought) Patreon


Ybarra's book The Papacy: Revisiting the Debate Between Catholics and Orthodox

Craig Truglia's Video on the "Forged" portion of Pope St. Agatho's Letter

Craig Truglia Claims Pope Hadrian I (ratified by Nicaea 787) condemned venerating statues as idolatry

My Response to Truglia's Claims on Pope Hadrian I and Statues

Craig Truglia's Article on Pope Agatho's "Interpolated" Epistle

Craig Truglia's Book "The Rise and Fall of the Papacy"

Craig Truglia's interpretation of Pope Agatho's Letter

[Brahmsian]

“The leaders of the Church of Constantinople, on the other hand, have often succumbed to heresy.” - De Vries

Enough said.

[wesley-chambers]

Great stuff, Erick! For those worried about the length of the video: while 3 hours is a long time, Erick speaks so clearly and slowly that you can listen at 1.75 speed and not miss a beat!

[MiszuFiszu]

God bless you, Erick, literally a while back I was slightly troubled by that article, but decided not to dwell on it. As is usually the case, when I stop fretting over something, God provides me with an answer soon enough. This time apparently you were His instrument :) All the best!

[kais.]

Agatho's letter is incoherent in the Cyprianic view that Truglia holds to. The references to Christ's promise to uphold Peter's faith, in conjunction with the exhortation to remain in communion with Rome make no sense if we believe that all bishops are equally Petrine. If you grant that Rome has a unique Petrine charism then Agatho's exhortation to the Eastern bishops makes sense, notwithstanding Truglia's assertion that Agatho was merely urging the East to remain in communion with the Roman See (as if this were not concomitant to remaining inside the universal Church) as he does in his book The Rise and Fall of the Papacy in the chapter on Agatho's letter.
I'd love to see some more consideration from you, Erick, on Truglia's content, as I am attempting to convince my wife to follow me out of Russian Orthodoxy.

[GTMancz]

Thank you for this!

Re: Schmemann's concession

This is what I find truly mind-boggling, that he (as do many others) in assessing the probable belief of Eastern Christian bishops, in the face of verbal official agreement, prioritises their Eastern identity with its (allegedly more relevant) concomitant peculiarities, as opposed to their common identity and belief as, precisely, Christians, and that in the context of Ecumenical councils, meetings that he believes gave witness to the faith of the entire Church.

How can anyone rationally do this?
What makes the hypothesis of a systematically differently-believing and equally systematically dishonest, among other things, East preferable to, say, the idea of divergent Easts, or even a simply inconsequent East, or an altogether pragmatic East, to name some?
I'm yet to see one exposition of the possible reasons.

[dioscoros]

This was a super hard-hitting video. Great job!

[IanVinh]

Thanks for this presentation. Looking forward to more videos on the YT channel.

[dianekamer]

49 minutes in. This is excellent. I have to interrupt to walk my dog, but I'll get back to this soon!

[NicoFTWandMichael]

Erick, quick question, how authentic is Constatine's letter to Leo II, because if it is, that's a strong claim to the "essence of papal infalibility", at least to me.

[kais.]

Thanks for another excellent presentation, Erick!

[kais.]

Erick I think you need to check that smoke detector 😂

[dianekamer]

That Byzantine-Honorific stuff is so silly. What Byzantine historian could practice his craft if he had to assume that his primary sources were chronically insincere? Just look at Byzantine historiography dealing with secular topics like political history and social history. Do secular Byzantine historians cavalierly dismiss their primary sources as obvious purveyors of empty flowery flattery? Somehow I rather doubt it.

"An accusation of poor faith" indeed! Not to mention a remarkable exercise in mind reading. It's hard enough to read one's _contemporaries'_ minds. But these folks claim to be able to read the minds of people who died hundreds of years ago. Impressive indeed! 😆